Serendipity
by faceless-synth
Summary: A collection of vignettes of the life of an Institute-aligned F!SS and her "noble" efforts to make the Commonwealth a better place, all while she struggles to maintain friendships, heal a troubled past, and sort out her feelings for a certain mercenary she left alive. Mainly F!SS/Kellogg. Spoilers, M-rating for language, violence, drug use, and sexual content.
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note:** This is my first published work of fanfic for anything _ ever _and I'm writing this self-indulgent garbage. **Spoilers ahead** if you haven't finished the main story line of the game. So, I wasn't satisfied with the outcome of having to forcibly kill Kellogg in Angry Parent mode. Thus, I'm proposing this - What if the F!SS doesn't_ _kill Kellogg? Cue the self-loathing, Not So Different trope, slow burning romance, what have you._

 _This series will contain some brief, out of order moments between my F!SS, Mia Weiss, Kellogg, and most of the game's companions._

 _ **Warnings:** Drug mention and use, angst, some fluff, romance, hurt/comfort, slow burn, bad language, violence, friendship, alcohol mention and use, eventual sex (mostly consensual, but some dubcon because of drinking), racism mention, childbirth mention, and that's about it. Enjoy!_

* * *

The roar of the world is sucked into a vacuum silence when Conrad Kellogg opens his eyes.

He's out of breath. He wheezes while trying to get his bearings, gloved hands gripping at the air for something solid. _Damn... what happened?_ Confusion renders him paralyzed. The cold titanium walls surrounding him are unfamiliar for a moment. He doesn't remember how he got here. And where exactly is here, anyway?

Maintaining focus is difficult, almost impossible. It's like a literal barrier is preventing him from reaching into his memory for answers. He knows he's been here before, but when? How long has it been since he's come back to this place? Days? Weeks? Years? God, no. Everything is a distant, hazy dream. The sense of detachment he has from it all almost gives him a panic attack.

 _Okay, okay. Chill out._ It's a good, long while before Kellogg can truly calm down. He doesn't know how long. Two minutes. Ten. Then all at once, it comes back to him.

He's back inside the Institute. Right.

The synths. The Old Man and his sycophants in white coats. And this cold cylindrical room he's standing in. It's practically a second home, the Relay Chamber. He's passed through it hundreds, perhaps thousands of times on his way out to do their bidding. It occurs to him how amazing it is that technology has come so far in such a broken world while thinking of every time he's been painlessly split into little particles and transported anywhere and everywhere.

Memories continue to come back to him in a steady stream now. Almost too quickly. Random thoughts buzz around Kellogg's brain like a colony of Bloatflies. _Shoot. Shi. Shelter. San Francisco. Sarah. Synths. Sword. Shaun._ He tries to let go of it all, tries not to fight against it like all those Old World psych books say to do. Leaning against the nearest wall and closing his eyes, Kellogg rides out the panic, pain and motion sickness that accompanies re-materialization.

Eventually, he's numb. He's himself again.

 _Bang!_

Kellogg flinches at the sudden noise and draws out his .44 with unnatural speed. He gives the room beyond the transporter a once-over, his heart hammering inside his chest. A shadow in his peripheral causes him to whip around, ready to face whatever trap was set for him.

Except there isn't one.

Lowering his gun, Kellogg realizes with much embarrassment that he simply knocked into a crate behind him. _Just a little jumpy, that's all_ , he mentally reassures himself. His attention shifts back to maintaining his own sanity. There's a pleasant humming noise coming from the terminal station nearby. He's always found terminals to be a source of frustration, opting for the lock-picking approach, but now it's presence is rather soothing. Something harmless and unvarying.

Holstering his weapon, the mercenary tries to loosen the muscle tension in his shoulders by stretching upwards. First his joints pop, then the tendons pull and unwind-

"Fuck!"

The pain hits Kellogg like a freight train. He clutches the nearest surface, preventing a total collapse. His heart is racing again from the adrenaline high that accompanies being hurt. In a moment of paranoia, he thinks he's been shot. But there's no one there, no sound of empty clips hitting the tiles or approaching footsteps.

Diagnosis? Well, it doesn't take a doctor to know his entire body is fubar. The worst of it is his left leg. Swollen with blood and feeling... _wrong_. Probably broken. There's a tightness in his chest and shortness of breath that suggests cracked ribs. Several deep chest wounds are hidden under a swath of dirty bandages. Upon further inspection, it appears that the wounds were once neatly stitched and have likely reopened from strain. Great.

He lets out a rasping cough, which only causes more blood to seep through his shirt. His favorite shirt. _What a goddamn mess._ The mercenary bites down on his tongue, almost losing it entirely. The very fact that out of everything that's happened to him he's mostly bothered by his only decent shirt being ruined lets him know he's not entirely in his right mind.

"But hey, look at the bright side. I'm still kicking," Kellogg consoles himself with a bone-dry laugh. "That should be of some consolation, right?

He's always used humor to take the edge off of a bad situation. But this time?

Kellogg isn't laughing.


	2. Chapter 2

The Institute is always thinking one step ahead. Kellogg knows this because he's living proof of their ingenuity.

Besides caps, often his reward for a job well done is a new implant. _Just a prototype_ , they say. _Experimental_. He's let the bastards cram all sorts of microchips and wires into his brains and muscles over the years, which make him ugly as a sin but more difficult to kill. The trade-off is more than worth it in his opinion.

Their gadgets do more than just physically change him. He becomes a tougher nut to crack, figuratively and literally speaking. Un-killable is his body and un-spillable are the secrets in his mind. Like some shit out of a Grognak comic.

Kellogg tested it once, thinking that the worst that could happen was that he would just spontaneously burst into flames or something. Instead, he just couldn't get the words out right. Sentences came out scrambled. When he asked the doc about it, he was told it involves some kind of double encryption that only makes sense to geniuses on the inside.

At least that's what they thought. Now for the first time in decades there's somebody on the outside who can outsmart the invincible bastards.

 _Our base in the northeast sector has been terminated by an unknown assailant._

 _What the f-? How's that even possible? There's just no conceivable way that a single human could render so many units inoperable!_

 _I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news._

 _Whatever. What's the status on our targets?_

 _Oh. That, uh... well, our field agent was able to trace their last whereabouts to the Memory Den._

 _And? Is he requesting a Courser for retrieval?_

 _No, sir. He lost contact._

 _What the hell do you mean he 'lost contact'?_

 _The targets were somehow escorted out of the Commonwealth by the Railroad._

 _Idiot! Remind me who's covering that area so I can make sure he's adequately punished._

Kellogg recalls the conversation like an annoying pre-war radio advertisement. That asshole Ayo wouldn't shut up about it for weeks, and it only continued to get worse each time another escaped synth was aided or a base on the surface destroyed. An inconvenience, they called it. The truth is that they were (and still are) scared to death. Woken up to the fact that they're no longer completely untouchable.

So, yeah. Those little developments changed up the game. Proved that whoever the Institute was up against wasn't just clever. They were tough. Resilient. Normally such an individual would be easy to pin-point, but they knew nothing about their new menace except that they were... well, a menace. Could only speculate that it was the Brotherhood or the Railroad preparing for war, which only made them ten times more paranoid and snippy over the most minor little inconveniences.

Thinking back, Kellogg unconsciously knew it was _her_ all along. Miss Vault Dweller, always looking for the excuse to meddle. He could have told the eggheads about her. Why didn't he? Perhaps there exists a self-destructive part of himself who wants her to absolutely wreak their shit so he can at least go down in a fight.

And _oh_ , did she know how to fight.

Kellogg's eyes wander around the room, searching for a fixation point until they catch the terminal's monitor. His stares back into his own eyes. Twin black voids. Haggard and bloodshot to all hell, but hawkish and intimidating. Or so he's been told.

 _Wait... was that... always there?_

Kellogg does a double take at the reflective surface of the screen, bringing his calloused fingers up to trace the deep, crusted-over cut on his face. He traces it horizontally along his cheekbone and nose, where it crosses through the old scar on his left eye. Suddenly, soft voice in his mind makes him shudder. _X marks the spot. Right, Kellogg?_ He must be losing it. Flashing images and sound bites return without context — Vicious barking from a feral dog. The tick of a pulled grenade pin. Black smoke clawing down his lungs. Robotic, red eyes. A woman's scream.

 _I'm going to make you suffer, motherfucker!_

Suddenly, like the breaching of a dam, the events at Fort Hagen come flooding back to him.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Author's Note:** This chapter is a flashback and stays in Kellogg's POV. Enjoy!_

* * *

 _\- Two months ago -_

 _Squelch._ Kellogg grimaces at the viscera on his boot, scraping as much of the remains as he can on the edge of a nearby chair. He thinks, with a chuckle, that Vault Dwellers are kind of like Radroaches. No matter where in the world you are, however empty a place appears at first, there's always a few of the creatures skittering around.

They're persistent little buggers. You squash them, more come back. You set them on fire and their friends crawl out of the walls like it's a barbecue. Small ones, big ones, glowing ones, flying ones, ones that hide inside the boots of poor, dead bastards. They might be easy to kill, but they also survived the bombs. Grew bigger and larger than they apparently had been before the war. Evolution or some shit.

In some ways, it's not worth the extra time and effort take them out. They're usually harmless, if left alone. Usually. But who knows what could happen? Today, the basement. Tomorrow, the world.

Kellogg glances at the functioning alarm clock sitting atop the dusty coffee table in front of him, amused by the mental image of Radroaches flooding the halls of the Institute, eggheads scattering and screaming for their pathetic lives.

16:47. _Boom!_

A loud explosion shakes the earth. It comes from two stories below ground, but it's strong enough to ring through the concrete walls of the derelict Fort. He quickly dodges a large piece of moldy ceiling that crumbles down, smashing to sharp bits in the center of the room.

Twelve minutes. That's all it took for his stalker to find him.

"Turn it on," he orders gruffly. A nearby Gen-1 switches on the camera feed and a static black and white image of the the mystery offender appears. A short thing holding a sword. Maybe a woman? _Let's see now... who did I piss off recently?_

The mercenary leans against a stack of wooden crates and prepares to smoke a cigar. He thinks it's funny. It _is_ funny. There's just no way this lone attacker can take on his army synths. And are they even wearing any armor? Hopeless and pathetic.

"They won't make it past the first floor," Kellogg says to no one, chewing on the end of his unlit cigar. One by one, he watches them slice through his army with a level of skill and finesse he hasn't witnessed since his days working for the Shi.

They make it past the first floor in less than five minutes.

"Send four more units down. Now!" Kellogg barks, fingers flying on one of the consoles as he initiates a total lock-down of the place. Who the hell is this? The mercenary speculates on their identity, running her through his mental list of possible threats. _A bounty hunter? Couldn't be a Regulator; too far north. A Courser? Does Ayo have a bone to pick with him for ignoring his messages?_

The camera at the top of the basement staircase shows them clearly for the first time. When he spots the 111 and the stark blue of a Vault suit he knows instantly who he's dealing with.

 _The Vault Dweller? How the hell-_

Another explosion causes him to stumble back, grunting when he gets thrown into the hard surface of the console. Black smoke funnels through the gaps in the floor. Closer now. He has to give her credit: the woman knows what she's doing.

"Sir, seven units have been rendered inoperable. Awaiting further orders," the synth reports.

"Send more."

Almost immediately, two more synths are destroyed by a homemade mine. Kellogg watches her pat her back pockets and leather side satchel with a thoughtful pout. In an instant, the torso of her suit is down and she's tying the flaccid arms around her waist. Kellogg guesses it's to free up movement as she trades her bombs for an electric-powered katana. It's a unique weapon. Something dangles from the handle - a good luck charm, perhaps?

Her exposed skin tells stories of her fierce and friendly encounters. On her back is a tattoo of a long stemmed flower, her neck blemished with a nasty burn scar. She pulls down the blood red kerchief covering her nose and mouth, her expression a mask of placidity as if she's waiting in an elevator or perusing the aisles of a grocery store.

Looking at the nearby intercom, Kellogg decides to take her confidence down a notch. He speaks into the microphone: "Well, if it isn't my old friend the Frozen TV dinner. Last time we met you were cozying up to the peas and apple cobbler."

The woman on screen looks around with an irritated expression while he puts his cigar out in the ashtray beside him. Now he remembers why he's let the Vault incident slip his mind for decades. He repressed it. Pushed the image of her face behind the frosted glass out of his mind, just like all of the other shitty things he's done. After that job, he forced himself to focus on one after the next, the events bleeding together like watercolors on a canvas.

Wasn't easy to forget that day by a long stretch. Maybe it would have been easier if he hadn't been roped into watching over her kid, who wasn't even her real kid. Though in some respects he was a better alternative.

The real Shaun was long gone.

"Turn it off."


	4. Chapter 4

_Mr. Kellogg? When you go out again, do you think you could find me a few things? I wanna build you something._

The situation with Shaun in Diamond City would have been funny if it weren't so goddamn sad. The two of them were shacked up for several months. Just Kellogg and an aged up imitation of the kid he snatched sixty years ago. The one whose father he killed in cold blood and whose mother he left alive to live with it.

Shaun Weiss.

Almost immediately, the kid started called him "Mr. Kellogg" - unbelievable. Nobody had called him Mr. Anything in a long time. For as long as he could remember, he was just Kellogg, The Merc or That Bastard. Suffice it to say, it took him a long time to get used to his new moniker.

 _Mr. Kellogg, have you read this issue before? It's the one where Grognak goes into the lair of the Virgin Eater. I don't know what a virgin is, but the pictures are pretty cool!_

The kid was brighter than most his age and pretty easy to occupy. Liked to read comics and tinker with old junk, so that's what Kellogg gave him. Sometimes he'd stay up all night, banging and fiddling away until he went into a kind of low-energy state. He wasn't sleeping or anything, but Kellogg still carried him to bed and watched over him until his own eyes drooped with exhaustion.

 _Mr. Kellogg, can Nina come over and play again? She's nice, and her dad's really cool, too. I saw you talking to him at the market the other day while I was looking out the window. Is he your friend?_

One time the kid built him some kind of gizmo that could better store his ammunition. It was his first real present since his mother gifted him a revolver at ten years old. He doesn't remember much from that time, but that particular memory has always stuck out like a rusty nail. It hurt to think about, too, in a distant sort of way. But a bit of cognitive dissonance never killed anybody.

Shaun was a walking, talking, breathing reminder of Kellogg's failures as a parent and as a caretaker, yet he couldn't bring himself to hate the synth. How could he hate a child, a victim of the real Shaun's cold, callous nature?

Over time, Kellogg grew to like the boy's presence. He never looked at him with fear or spoke down to him, showed him more respect than any adult human being ever did in his life.

 _Mr. Kellogg? You weren't born in the Institute, right? Dr. Li says you're over 100 years old, but if you're not a synth ... where did you come from? The surface?_

The mercenary entertained the kid's questions, usually when he wasn't in a shitty mood or happened to make the mistake of having a shot of whiskey before bed. He always wanted to hear stories from his past life, so that's what he told him. Most were harmless - his childhood in the Hub, his days as a bounty hunter in The Den, working for the Shi in San Fran. He'd even had a very brief stint with Mr. House back in New Vegas, which ended almost as quickly as it began. The kid was completely dazzled by his best gunfights, close-call caravan runs through New Mexico and Utah, and all the exciting, weird shit in-between.

Each time he finished a tale, Shaun looked at him like he was the same hero in all the comic books he read.

 _Wow! I hope my dad's just as cool as you._

In a way, he had mistakenly let that praise feed his ego. So much so, in fact, that Kellogg even opened up about his late family. Sarah and little Mary. That was a mistake he still regretted to this day, recalling what Shaun said in response.

 _One day, I'll have a family of my own! And I'll get strong, so I can protect them from the bad guys._

Kellogg laughed at the time. Yeah. Bad guys like him. He didn't have the heart to tell him that his dream was just as unlikely as it was impossible, thanks to the Institute.

On bad days, when Kellogg couldn't drink or shoot away the ghosts of his past, the kid really spooked him. He was the spitting image of his mom. Same blaming gray eyes. Same dark skin and freckled face. Same do-gooder spirit, judging from what he heard about her on the radio.

 _Mr. Kellogg, do I have to go back to the Institute one day? I like being here with you, but I know Father probably misses me. You think maybe he'll come live up on the surface if I ask?_

This version of Shaun was real, all right. But Kellogg often wondered if his mother would see things differently. Not once did it cross his mind to care whether the kid was human or a machine. Then again, he had never been a dad. Not really.

Anyway, the two of them carried on living something resembling a normal life. This happened all while the escaped Vaultie trekked through the Commonwealth, a vengeful mother on a hunt for blood. Or so he thought. From the weekly reports he hacked into on Ayo's terminal, Kellogg was amazed at her ability to survive for so long. He gave her 50/50 odds of making it to Diamond City, truly expecting her to get herself killed at some point. But she had lived. Rooted herself in the politics of the land and blossomed into a local legend. Now, she was running her own outfit and everything.

 _Mr. Kellogg? Who is Travis talking about when he says the 'Vault Dweller'? I've read about pre-war Vaults before, but I thought that the people inside them were all... dead._

The mercenary knew that all those heroic stories he heard were about her. Miss General of the Minutemen saves a nearby settlement from Raiders. Esteemed Brotherhood Knight wipes out a colony of Super Mutants. The Silver Shroud protects the residents of Goodneighbor from terrible drug lords. The Commonwealth's Resident Saint builds a whole settlement with her own two hands.

He could have puked at how noble she was.

 _Mr. Kellogg? I was wondering... do I have a Mom? Father won't tell me, but maybe you know the answer._

She was Miss Perfect. Nothing to hide and not a perfect hair out of place. Her only fault was that she was too good. Not naive, but soft-hearted. Weren't that many parents who'd go to all the trouble to find a lost kid. The Wasteland was an unforgiving place. He'd almost felt sorry she wasted her time on such a pointless endeavor.

Almost.


	5. Chapter 5

_"Shaun? Baby, are you in here?"_

A robotic voice is heard over the speakers. **Hostile sensor reading detected.**

 _"Ugh. Look, you metal nuisance, is your name Shaun? Yeah, I didn't think so."_

Laser fire sounds off in the neighboring room, quick and precise. There's a loud metal-against-metal grinding noise and the woman's sharp intakes of breath come harshly through the sound system.

All is quiet, only for a moment.

 _"Ouch. That's definitely going to scar."_

She's still coming.

Kellogg switches off the power in the Command Center and waits, hearing her footsteps approach closer and closer. There she is. The Vault Dweller stands only a few feet away from him, beyond the electronically locked gate. She talks to herself, slow and methodical, eyes pouring over every detail.

"-way too easy to get lost in here. Like a maze. A messy one. Maybe that's intentional. Lighting makes it difficult to detect traps."

She's technicolor, larger than life. Fresh out of another time. Like a magazine pin-up, only dust-coated. Kellogg has the perverse urge to caress her face and pin-curled hair, just to check if she's as real as she looks. There's a laser-burn wound across her calve, but she seems not to care.

"If all goes well, maybe I'll come back here to scavenge a few parts," she resolves, putting a note into her Pip-Boy. For a few minutes, she pokes around the trash on the ground with the tip of her sword. "Anything good in here? No... yes? Yes!" She pockets something. A few loose screws, springs and a broken light-bulb. Odd. She wear a pensive expression. Then, as if it suddenly occurs to her, she parks herself down on a crate and fishes through her side pouch.

"Whew, I'm a fuckin' hot mess today. Guess I should take care of this before the big showdown."

She presses her curled fingers to her lips and breathes deeply, her head lolling back against the cracked foundation. A noxious vapor streams from her nostrils, giving her the look of some ancient dragon in a dim lit cave. She closes her eyes and giggles, kicking at a bent can.

" _Damn_ , that's good. Mercenary motherfucker doesn't stand a chance now."

Her tone is more confident, body swaying a bit when she gets up. She's significantly less fidgety than she was before, foot steps dissipating behind the clatter of an empty Jet inhaler as she leaves the room. Kellogg figures it's an effect of the drugs. It's a vice he hadn't expected. Perhaps she's not as pristine as her records indicate.

Popping the lock on a med box, Kellogg shoves a few Stimpaks into his pocket. It's clear to him now that nothing he can say will change her mind. Still, he doesn't stop trying to warn her, especially when she reaches the armory:

"It's not too late. Stop. Turn around and leave. You have that option. Not a lot of people can say that."

For a moment, her outstretched hand hesitates before the gate. Kellogg thinks maybe he's talked some sense to her, but then her shape comes into view from the camera by the door. She approaches it until her face is very close, eyes dilated and wide, painted lips scrunched up.

 _"Eat shit."_

She flips him off. A strange nausea bubbles in his stomach. _Cocky little thing._ She's just like his younger self, though he would never admit it. The striking similarity makes him extremely uncomfortable.

He definitely has to kill her.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Author's Note:**_ _Hey! This fic was abandoned, like, a year ago and probably won't be updated much after this month. Figured I'd publish all the chapters I have on hand. This one is in Mia's POV and a bit longer than the others. Enjoy!_

* * *

The lock on the door to the opens with a rusty click, and the door itself swings open to a drafty, dark room. Mia steps inside and jumps at the hum of power that brings the open space to life. One by one the row of lights above flicker on, and she immediately notices the presence of several synths who, while armed, remained passive despite her sudden appearance.

"And there she is. The most resilient woman in the Commonwealth."

Out from behind one of the long-dead consoles steps an older man with a scar down his left eye. He has his hands raised to the air in a mocking gesture of surrender. It's Kellogg, the mercenary who stole her baby. Her hand tightly grips the handle of her blade, poised and ready to strike. _Stay calm and focused. Ask him where your son is and don't anger him. Maybe he'll see reason._

Big, fat emphasis on the 'maybe' part. Though she's several yards away, Mia can clearly see the large gun in his holster and read the threatening look on his face. He's amused, irritated and sorely disappointed. It's as if she's the last runner in a marathon race that ended hours ago and he's the unfortunate bastard left to say congratulations.

Taking a deep breath, Mia walks into the center of the room. _See, that wasn't so difficult, was it?_ It suddenly occurs to her that she's passed by this place before, in the adjacent hallway where she took a hit of Jet. Could he have been waiting here the whole time, watching her? Like billiard balls struck on a table, her eyes dart around the space, noting every threatening detail, object and potential areas of cover lest she finds herself engaged in combat with this terrible man. She sincerely hopes it doesn't come to that.

Naturally, he's the first to speak. His voice is cocky. "You came a long way. Let's here it."

 _Oh, you'll hear it alright. Unless I stick my sword in your ear and right through your stupid cueball head._ Standing less than two feet away from her now, Kellogg meets her gaze with equal disdain. Her lips are trembling with silent rage and... Oh, no. The panic sets in, rendering her speechless. This is the last thing she wanted to happen, but it's not like she can prevent it. All that can make it go away is time, and that seems to be passing slower than normal. As irrational as the idea is, she can't help but wonder if she's been standing there for hours. _This isn't how this is supposed to happen._

After an excruciatingly long moment, Mia finally finds her voice. It's smaller than she intends, but there. "Enough with the games. Just tell me where he is?"

Kellogg smiles, shifting his boots coyly. " _Hmph_. I'm only a puppet, lady. Just like you, only my stage is a little bigger." Almost immediately, the smile is gone. "Shaun's a good kid. He's not quite a 'baby' anymore, but trust me when I say he's doing great."

Before she can ask herself what exactly he means, she hears Nick's calculating voice in her head. _Kellogg was living with a ten year old boy._ A boy much older than her Shaun. Had she found the wrong man? Or perhaps she had hastily assumed that the kidnapping took place sooner than it really had. God, everything was so messed up.

Mia opens her mouth to ask and is quickly interrupted. "I know you're hoping for a happy reunion, but that ain't gonna happen. Your kid's not here."

 _Not here?_ Mia's mind loops that single statement until she practically goes insane. She fights the incredible urge to run outside, screaming and shaking her fist at the sky. At the same time, the tranquilizing effect of the Jet cocktail makes her feel oddly disassociated from her surroundings. It's as if she's floating high above, like a weather balloon indifferently watching the storm below. She sees herself squirm under Kellogg's intense scrutiny, gray eyes zeroing in on her fingers nervously tapping along her hip to the rhythm of her hard pulse. Ba-duh. Ba-duh.

Lips suddenly dry, her tongue flicks out to wet them. Looking at her with absolute pity, Kellogg silently affirms that, yes, he totally meant what he said.

"Then where is he?" Mia croaks.

"He's with the people pulling the strings."

Something like a strained giggle claws its way out of her dry throat, pulling at the corners of her mouth. "Is that so? Well then you're going to take me to him. _Now_."

Yeah, that sounded way more intimidating in her head than out loud.

Kellogg raises his eyebrows, stunned and speechless for a moment. Then he erupts into raucous laughter, almost doubling over at her request. "Take you to him? _Hahahaha!_ "

Mia doesn't find her request very funny at all. In fact, if she didn't need so desperately need information from him, she'd have cut out Kellogg's tongue and fed it to a pack of wild mongrels by now. "Take me to my son."

He settles down enough to respond to her, sarcastic and somewhat conversational. "Like I could, even if I wanted to." The sentence reads more like, _Are you stupid?_ Recognizing her blank expression, he begins to explain in a patronizing manner. "Shaun is in a place nobody can reach. Get the picture?"

Kellogg's words translate into her biggest fear. _Oh, God. Is he dead?_ Her heart races. "I don't understand, are you saying he's-"

"Still alive," he confirms. _Thank God_. "Just... what's the cliche? 'So close, and yet so far away?' That's him. He's at the Institute, a place where he's safe, comfortable and loved."

"The Institute?" She repeats, incredulous. By now she's heard enough horror stories about this Commonwealth boogeyman disrupting lives and kidnapping people. But why would they want her son? A baby fresh from another time? First, she had to accept the idea that her son was in the hands of the some merc who murdered Nate in cold blood. Now, Shaun was a lab rat holed up in East Jebip with a group of mad scientists? This is just getting ridiculous.

She gets right to the point, already tired of playing his guessing game. "Tell me how to find the Institute."

Kellogg laughs at her again, the reaction starting to grate her nerves. "You don't pay much attention, do you? You don't find the Institute. The Institute finds you." He shrugs. "Like a monster inside the closet. It's all in your head, until the moment it jumps out at you."

 _Okay, what the fuck is he even on about?_ Mia pinches her nose in frustration. She wonders how any of this could be real. Maybe she really was falling down the rabbit hole. Or, more likely, the high was just creeping up on her. Paranoia makes her consider that she's just trapped in a simulation. She knows of the ones her husband went through as part of his military training. _I swear, if this is another Vault Tec experiment._ For the time being, Mia decides to believe that this is reality.

"Whatever. I'll find my son no matter where he is," she resolves, pushing down the rising fear and uncertainty. "Nothing will stop me. I'll tear apart the whole fucking Commonwealth if I have to! Let any motherfucker try me."

Slow and sly, the mercenary spreads his lips into a warm smile. The strange look does something equally strange to her when it erases her building anger. Once tense fingers relax on the handle of her katana.

"Ha! That's the spirit," He says with fervor, looking her over like she's a new woman. "Damn, you're something else. Got a lot of nerve for a Vault Dweller. I find myself actually kind of... _liking_ you."

A feeling of shame washes over Mia at the sudden presence of warmth in her cheeks. At that exact moment, the skin around his eyes crinkles with amusement and a kind of fond recognition. As if he's been in her exact shoes before, or even respects who and what she is. No one out in the Wasteland has ever looked at her like that. No one since _Him_ on the day they first met, staring at one another across the diner like they finally found what they had been looking for their whole lives.

"You might have actually been a good mother," Kellogg continues. At this point, she can't tell if he's serious or just messing with her while she's vulnerable. Either way, she tries to stay unaffected. It doesn't do anything to tame the redness of her face, which by now he notices. He _so_ notices.

"I _am_ a good mother," she says through her teeth.

"That you are," he corrects himself. "Your dedication is admirable, albeit useless."

Taking notice of his hardened stance, Mia remembers the situation she's in. Most likely, Kellogg won't allow her to leave this building alive. He might be toying with her now, but his intentions remain the same. Otherwise, he wouldn't still have his synths pointing their laser rifles at her back. _Say something. Do something._ Her brain screams at her to take action before he does, so she points the end of her weapon at him and sneers.

"Look here, asshole. Consider yourself lucky that I didn't come here with the intention of killing you, much as you totally fucking deserve it," she explains, staring at his gun. "Now I just want to get the hell out of here and forget I ever crossed paths with you." She turns her back on him, making her way back to the door. "I'll find my own way out-"

"I'm afraid I can't let you do that. We both know how this has to end."

With frightening speed, both synths in the room block her exit, their rifles and glowing blue eyes zeroed-in on her chest. Mia halts in her footsteps, head angled at the cracked cement ground. The anger returns, slow but sure, and floods her twitching muscles with primal adrenaline. When she turns around and meets his gaze, it's clear he's resolved to finish the job. Another corner she's been forced into. Another body added to the count. There's no end to this cycle of violence, is there? Something old and dark wells up inside her chest that makes her sweat, shallow cuts on her skin stinging from the grime. Grief. Rage. Acceptance. _That's fine. Fine, fine, fine._ Her next words come out low and choked.

"I'm going to make you suffer."

 _Tick._

A mine drops in front of Kellogg's boots.


	7. Chapter 7

"You're not as soft as I thought!"

Thick, black smoke blocks Kellogg's vision of the Vault Dweller, but his voice rings loud and clear. The mercenary hears her tearing through his through his synths in a blind rage and hisses at the pain in his leg. She got him good with that goddamn grenade trick. He's quickly learning that he should have never underestimated her. Blood-covered and fatally wounded, she's still going like a Deathclaw with it's arms blown off. Once the smoke clears, he sees her dash out into the open. The fire in her eyes makes him reach for the Stealth Boy in his pocket.

"Fucking _coward_!" She snarls, drawing her blade. "I'm gonna cut off that smart-assed tongue when I find you!"

Taking aim, Kellogg fires at her lithe form darting from cover to cover. A grenade sails through the stagnant air right at him and he rolls out into the open to avoid it. _Boom!_ She curses from afar, her shadow moving against the wall and making its way towards him from the right. Or so he thinks. Turns out she tricked him again by ricocheting the explosive off the opposing gate. She catches him off guard from the left, somehow able to see his cloaked form.

"Not bad!" Kellogg growls, meeting her thrust with the muzzle of his pistol. Her feet stumble back, but she's quick to recover and come at him again and again. Where is this stamina coming from? He racks his mind for an answer. Couldn't just be the Jet, he concludes. She's got this hysterical strength flowing out of her, overtaking her, _consuming_ her entirely. It's her, and somehow, it's _not_ her.

"Give him back to me!" She screams in between the loud clashes of metal against metal. Small and light, she has the advantage of speed, while his height and stocky build gives him the upper on strength. In one motion, Kellogg manages to scoop her up and throw her down into one of the consoles.

"Shaun's gone!" He roars, kicking her sword away and grabbing her around the neck. "You'll never see him again."

Squeezing harder and harder, he watches the blood rise to her face and her body struggle under him. It's almost over. He wants to look away. Too intimate. He's used to shooting people from a distance. The choking sounds grow quieter as she fights him less and less. This kind of closure makes Kellogg uncomfortable, so he looks past her at some invisible point in time and space.

"I feel sorry for you," he tells her, jaw locked. "Came all this way for nothing."

Briefly, he looks down. A mistake. Her eyes are glossy and pained. Betrayed. Suddenly, there's a sharp pain in his side that makes his grip slack. He looks down with surprise to see that she's got a switchblade stuck in the junction between his torso and arm, twisting the weapon with a precise, deliberate motion. He tries putting more pressure onto his grip but finds that his body doesn't respond.

"Cut... tendon," she wheezes with a half-smile. "Hand... useless."

She pulls the knife out and stabs him again in his bicep. That causes Kellogg to let go entirely, reaching for his gun. He brings it down on her head, but the impact isn't as solid as he hoped. The pistol slips out of his dead hand and onto the floor. Over and over, he tries to flex. There's no feeling there, the nerve paths burning white hot as their signals fail time and time again.

" _Argh_! What the hell did you do to me?"

While he searches for a Stimpak, the Vaultie raises herself from the console and takes wobbly steps towards her discarded sword. The mercenary renders himself invisible with another Stealth Boy, making a dive for the farthest corner of the room. There's one more grenade in his pouch, so Kellogg pulls the pin with his teeth and throws it in her direction. What happens next floors him - in some crazy maneuver, she whips around bats away the grenade. The fiery blast tears away some of her Vault Suit, exposing hints of scarred skin and familiar symbols tattooed on her thigh. Her form parts through the smoke, sprinting towards him with incredible vigor.

" _Hahahaha_! Nice try! X marks the spot, Kellogg!" She cackles with righteous anger, swinging her katana towards his face. The shock of her blood loss has made her crack. She gets him good in the face and ribs, hacking and slashing away. There's a calculated method to her madness as she easily evades his attempts to defend himself, and before he knows it, his vision starts to go black. Her insane laughter dies in his ears, ringing deep in hollow as it disappears into a tunnel.

 _I'm finally coming home, Sarah... Mary..._


	8. Chapter 8

_**Author's Note:**_ _Aaaaaand our long flashback is over. We're back to a continuation of Chapter Two in Kellogg's POV. If you read this story previously, you'll see that these next parts used to be the beginning chapters. I decided to edit them and put them here instead. Enjoy!_

* * *

The elevator opens and Kellogg hobbles inside, pushing the red button. The chamber locks and he begins the smooth descent. His last one.

He should never have come back here in the first place. This whole ordeal was one giant waste of time, a stupid revenge gambit at the cost of his life. Too late to back out now, so Kellogg turns off his brain and sighs, leaning against the curved wall of the elevator chamber for support. He distracts himself from the pain of his injuries by observing the flow of activity in the main rotunda below.

Rather than the usual empty sight, the white coats and their synthetic workers flit about like ants — cleaning, repairing older models, making deliveries across divisions. A rise in activity can only mean that something big must have happened while he was away. Question is - what?

 _Hm. Something this wide-scale has to be related to that 'Phase Three' they keep talking about._ All Kellogg knows about the mysterious plan is that it's has something to do with the sudden increase in Gen 3 production. They never told him the specifics. They wouldn't, even if he cared enough to ask. Institute projects are classified to laypersons, and that's just the way it's always been. No point in arguing. Besides, they think he's too stupid to understand science. Little do they know he's been doing his homework over the decades. Almost eighty years of knowledge on a variety of topics - hydroponics, robotics, anatomy, physics, mathematics, even marine biology - are stored away in his brain.

He often entertains himself by imitating their nasal voices in his mind. _Dummies like you, Kellogg, can never understand the mind of an Institute genius such as myself, nor the complicated inner-workings of our glorified humanoid deathbots._

Feigning ignorance suits him fine. A job is made easier with less details to be hung up over. On a level deeper than that, nothing the Institute ever sets out to accomplish really matters to him. He'll let them replace the whole damn world with synths as long as he can keep doing what he does best.

Killing.

The elevator stops with a sense of finality. The weight of the magnum on his hip seems heavier now, and Kellogg hears his mother's stern voice command him onward on his mission. _Use it._ Looking at the grandiose structure around him, the intricate web of glass that stretches across the dome ceiling to the the crystal-clear waters flowing beneath his feet, knowing that this infernal place houses some of the world's greatest minds, he knows he really doesn't want to die here. Not like this, a cornered rat, a nobody among people who've fashioned themselves into gods.

Not without accomplishing something to make his demise meaningful, like taking down the Old Man and his empire once and for all.

* * *

"Sir, you are in violation of Institute health and safety protocols. Please report to the Medical Bay for immediate assist-"

 _Streeeeeeeak._ The robotic voice is drowned out behind the high-pitched squeal of Kellogg's hand sliding against the glass corridor.

"Sir-"

He smears his own blood across it's pristine surface, eliciting gasps from some of the passing Gen-3 workers. He knows he doesn't need to put on such a dramatic display, but he does it all the same. _I'll give those assholes something to be pissed off about, if I don't make it out of this alive._

Sucking in a deep breath, Kellogg forces himself to pick up the pace. He cuts through the hall like a shark through water, ignoring the stares of horror and signals of pain that flare in his limbs. He reprimands himself for his weakness: _C'mon, you old bastard. You've lived through worse._ His body is abuzz with with nervous energy which he refuses to admit is anxiety. But it's hard to deny the truth when his heart's racing and his airways tighten like he's being choked by ghosts in his past.

 _Maybe I am._ No. Ridiculous. It's just adrenaline, he rationalizes. The pure thrill of walking straight into the lion's den. He swears he's heard a story like that back West, about some kid being thrown into a pit and slaying deadly pre-war creature. Sounded like bullshit at the time, but who knows what the truth is anymore? Those Mormons were wild, spinning tales about crazy shit that sound more like Jet hallucinations than supposed history.

Kellogg's steps into the long echo chamber taking him deeper into the facility. In the adjacent hallway, a shape moves in his peripheral. He hears a masculine whisper, short and irate. Then, the eye daggers sink into him, like a rusty kitchen knife into a wooden pedestal. He knows those eyes. Kellogg turns his head and returns the look with his best Fuck You smile to Dr. Ayo.

 _Missed me, prick? Sorry I'm not wearing my Sunday best; I forgot to run to the laundromat._

No doubt the man was spreading word of his arrival like wildfire. Soon, another pair of bespeckled eyes fall upon the mercenary. Young and unaware. This time, Kellogg decides to perform a little experiment of his own and opens his mouth to speak.

"Hey."

The word are hoarse with disuse, but not unfriendly in tone. The boy scientist freezes in place, eyes wide like a wild rabbit caught in a hunter's trap. "S-Sir?"

Kellogg practically blocks the kid's path. "You look like a smart kid. Where can I find Father?" He almost gags at the asinine title.

The boy avoids his eyes. "Oh, uh, I really wouldn't k-know, sir. Sorry. You could check with one of the other division heads. They should be out of their afternoon meeting by now, I think."

"Who are you working under?"

The boy hesitates. "Dr. Allie Filmore, sir."

The yellow in his jumpsuit could have told him that. Kellogg lets his words marinate while scrutinizing the boy. His scrawniness and I-don't-have-a-clue demeanor place him at no older than sixteen. "Wow. A junior engineer. You're the youngest I've seen around here. Family must be proud."

"I-I suppose so, sir." The boy responds to Kellogg's rare praise, still staring at the ground with extreme focus.

"Not 'sir', kid. Just Kellogg. Anyway, stay out of trouble."

At his dismissal, the boy's eyes dart up briefly and he gives a curt nod before wordlessly stumbling past him. Once his footsteps fade, Kellogg laughs. Jesus. He never realized how much of a boogieman he is to the new meat. It wasn't like he minded being treated like a ticking time-bomb or anything. Not really. His whole career was built off the rumor that he killed his employers if he had any reason to suspect they cheated him. That, or he just didn't like the way they spoke to him. With stories like that floating around, who could blame them for running away?

Kellogg sharply turns the corner, his hand on his gun. In his line of work, the power scale was always tipping. A deadly see-saw, with employer and employee at risk for mutual destruction. If one side went down in flames, the other's fate was up in the air. There's a word the scientists use to describe this balance. Homeostasis. The Vault Dweller was the catalyst, in this instance, triggering a spontaneous chemical chain. Even knowing that she was to blame, he couldn't bring himself to hate her entirely. Not when they were so alike. Not when she's the key to bringing an end to the place he's grown to despise so much.

The mercenary rounds another corner and almost trips over his own feet. Standing in front of the Director's door is the last thing he wants to see.

"X6-88."


	9. Chapter 9

"It's been a while, Kellogg. I'm surprised you came back."

He doesn't like the Courser's tone. Not _back so soon_ , but _back at all_. Kellogg clears his throat and takes a moment to straighten the collar and cuffs of his jacket. He wants to look presentable. Well, as presentable as one can look covered in dried blood. He can play nice for now, pretend like this isn't a hostile confrontation so as not to agitate the killing machine.

"Don't look so glad to see me. I just have some business with the Old Man to settle."

A long pause. It's soulless eyes are concealed behind dark shades, but the mercenary knows it's carefully studying him. Noting all his injuries and scanning his biorhythms for inconsistencies.

"What business would that be exactly? You haven't made an appointment."

The mercenary gives a light roll of his shoulders, fighting against a murderous urge. "Oh, you know. A little of this and a little of that. It's classified."

The Courser doesn't budge. "If it can wait-"

"It can't."

X6 crosses it's arms, emphasizing it's authority, then continues. "Whatever the issue is, I hardly think it's top priority. I suggest you file a report with the appropriate division instead of wasting Father's time."

 _What a pain in my ass._ Kellogg has dealt with plenty of bouncers and guards who fancied themselves tough guys, but this was on an entirely different level of stubborn. Is it even possible to intimidate these things, which were the very definition of intimidation?

Taking a step closer, the mercenary lowers his voice to a threatening rumbling. "Look, I get it. You're only doing your job. Figure it must be so tough having to stand around with your thumb up your ass all day, waiting until you're given orders to kill." He smirks. "Kind of like a mutt with an itch it can't scratch, am I right?"

The Courser's jaw tightens a little. So even these machines can get a little riled up. Good to know. Kellogg stares back at his own miserable reflection in it's shades and considers what to say next. X6 cuts through his train of thought like a knife through butter.

"You're making a terrible mistake. There's no other way to say it."

The mercenary plays dumb. "Pal, I don't have a clue what you're talking about. And as much as it pains me, I really don't have the time to stick around and chit-chat. So what's gonna happen is one of two things. Either you let me through so I can deliver a message or we're gonna have a problem."

A minute passes. In different circumstances Kellogg would just kill the thing and be done with it. But the rational part of his brain, the tiny fragment of self-preservation that's left, knows that taking on an Institute Courser is a bad idea, especially on familiar ground. Lord knows what kinds of combat maneuvers Ayo's taught them in the time he was absent.

"Fine. Go," the Courser says. It happens a little too easy. X6 steps off to the left, holding it's arm out toward the doorway. Kellogg relaxes his fists. He can't help but get a last word in, really cement his dominance in the thing's matrix.

"Good mutt. That wasn't too difficult now, was it?"

He takes a step forward and feels an unnaturally tight grip his shoulder. It's touching him. Every nerve in Kellogg's body screams to punch it in the face.

"Hold on. I have one more thing to say before I stop using words to get my point across."

Kellogg grits his teeth. "Then say it."

The synth uses it's few inches in height to tower over him. "If you're going in there to do what I think you're going to do? Don't. I know the signs. We've worked on and off together for decades and I know your reputation for instability better than any of the Institute's living scientists. You need to let whatever's on your mind go, for your benefit and for the Institute's."

When X6 hesitates in letting him go even after speaking, Kellogg spits venom. "That all?"

"Let's just say I'm concerned that your prolonged absence has made you forget where your loyalties lie," says the Courser, carefully. "So I'll be watching you. If you attempt violence, I will respond accordingly."

Kellogg scoffs at the threat. This guy. From the day it was created, X6 carried out business like every day was it's last day before decommission. That wasn't new. What _was_ new was the almost passionate method to it's madness. It's difficult to pinpoint the exact time and cause for this change. Did Ayo tamper with his subroutines to make him more sadistic? It's become more apparent over the years that it wasn't quite like any of the other Coursers. They programmed X6 to be even more smug and relentless on the hunt, to like making others suffer. Maybe that was why it was often chosen as Kellogg's partner for bigger missions topside. A loyal dog and his master.

Next to the legendary A3-21, unit X6-88 was the best Courser in the Institute. Getting on his bad side meant you were in for a whole world of trouble.

"Duly noted."


End file.
